My Favorite money-saving Tips and Tricks

Shave legs with Conditioner- It’s cheap and makes them soft.  Most of the time I don’t even have to put lotion on them afterwards because the conditioner does its job so well.

 

My favorite-cheap mascara- Loreal Paris Voluminous

Add water to Mascara.  This doubled the life of my mascara.  It always dries out and gets all clumpy, so a little while ago I decided to just try adding a drop or 2 of water to the bottle, and sure enough, it worked great! I’ve since added water one more time just to extend the life even more, and it’s lasted 2x as long as normal.  I also saw on pinterest another option of someone adding contact solution.



Baby powder for oily hair.  I have been using this for years.  If your hair is oily, but you want it to last just one more day, shake some baby powder into your hands and spread it through your hair in the oily spots.  Run a brush or just your fingers through the baby powdered spots until it’s well blended.

Brush hair in the shower if wearing it curly instead of brushing once you’re out of the shower.  Mine always looks less frizzy and also has a better curl if I do this.

In a hurry?  


Iron out little wrinkles in clothes with your hair iron..but be careful you don’t burn yourself!


Dish soap takes out oil stains.  Dish soap is meant to cut into the grease, so why not the grease/oil on your shirt? It works great!


Blood stains. My mom always told me to use cold water and bar soap to get out the blood.  Worked for me every time!


Use Vinegar to Mop your floors. Fill up your sink with water and add a couple of Tablespoons of Vinegar and mop your kitchen floors.  My mom taught me this and we would use it on our white tile floors and it would keep them cleaner longer as well as clean them really nicely.



Dawn foaming soap-As long as you don’t get your sponge wet, it only takes 1 pump and maybe a few half pumps to do all our dishes. We bought 1 bottle and 1 refill bottle at the beginning of our marriage and lasted for the whole first year of our marriage! We just bought another refill about 4 months ago.


Buy bananas when they’re on sale, cut them up and freeze them. Infact, I do this with most of the fruits and veggies that we buy. Then when you need them they’re ready for you!


Want to make your house smell clean and fresh for cheap? Throw an orange peel, or the peel of a lemon in your disposal and grind it up for a bit.. voila, your hubby, or friends will think you just put in the work of cleaning your house, but you didn’t even break a sweat!:)

Add a little bit of oil to your pot of boiling pasta and it won’t overflow. I also saw on pinterest that if you place a wooden spoon on top of your boiling pot it won’t overflow as well. Haven’t tried that one yet though.


Birthday treats website. This site is awesome for helping you get the most out of your birthday! All you do is put in the info about where you’re located and when your birthday is..etc., and you can find out all the birthday promos in your area! It’s awesome! I’ve gotten free Denny’s, Red Robin, Cold Stone, Smoothie King, Etc. Here’s the website: http://www.freebirthdaytreats.com/

Hdmi cable. Ok, so this has been a great thing for me and my husband.  We don’t have cable, but we have some shows that we love to watch.  You can buy HDMI cables in Walmart or something like that, but we just went onto Amazon.com and found one that was $0.01 and that has worked fantastic for us! My husband read reviews and said the cheap ones work just as good as the $100 ones.  You can watch most shows on either the network’s website like NBC.com, or on hulu.com. Most newer tv's ad computers have the slot fo the HDMI cable. Check to make sure yours does before buying it. HDMI cables on Amazon.com


Sell old things, buy new. This has saved us so much money over the last year.  When Joel or I would run across something we weren’t using like an old coat, or backpack, or anything, we would go on KSL.com and sell them under their classifieds section.  When Joel needed a new computer we went on Amazon.com and sold his old one and then his new computer was pretty much half off because of the money we got for the old one.


Old stuff you want to remember, but don’t want anymore? take a picture.  This has saved us SOO much space! I have made lots of things over the last few years like an afghan, sweaters, dresses, etc. that I didn’t want to get rid of, but I never used any more.  I took a picture or 2 of each thing, made a file in my computer called “Old things”(real clever huh?lol), and took that thing to D.I.  I still had the memory, but didn’t have the bulky object anymore.  Joel did the same with old trophies, souveniers..etc.



Swaddlers. These things were AWESOME when Siena was first born. We used one until she was about 4 months old.  They have Velcro, so they hold SOO much better than wrapping your baby.  Siena started breaking out of all of her swaddles because she was so strong.  I found out about these, and they were fantastic! Swaddleme 2 pack on Amazon.com

“Diaper genie”.  I loved the ideas of a diaper pail that kept the stink in, but I hated that most of the diaper pails had bags that cost a fortune.  One of my friends suggested the Baby Trend Diaper Champ Deluxe.  With this one you can use your own trash bags.  You don’t have to buy expensive bags, and I think it works just as well as the Diaper Genie. Diaper Champ on Amazon.com